MTL - I’m in Hollywood

After listening to Eric’s words, Bill Gates was silent for a while and said: “Eric, I can’t promise all the conditions you have, which will make me very passive in front of the board.”

Eric shook his head: "Once Microsoft is split, all of your business outside of the Windos platform will lose its most fundamental advantage. I think this is the issue you need most to care about, not the views of those board members. ""

Bill Gates fluttered and suddenly realized what he said: "Eric, if Microsoft is split, you will also lose a very strong competitor, which is much better than maintaining the default status of Yahoo! So why do you want to take this video out? Or, you have realized that, according to the current situation, the federal government is likely to dare not make a decision to forcefully split Microsoft to further stimulate the new technology market? ”

Eric never took Bill Gates’s thoughts as a fool, and he was not surprised to hear him. “Without this video, Microsoft will definitely hurt if it won’t be split. Bone, not to mention, the government has always had a bad habit of not admitting mistakes and even forcing mistakes to continue even if you find yourself mistaken. So, your analysis is only a possibility. As for the benefits of Microsoft being split into fireflies, Of course, I understand this. But from the overall situation, once Microsoft is split, companies such as Yahoo in the future of the firefly system are likely to face the same fate. I know how to choose.

Bill Gates patrolled the folder on the desktop and the laptop for a moment, finally saying: "Eric, I can't give you an answer right away. And, in any case, some details of this contract must be renegotiated. At least, Yahoo's browser should have a tendency to Microsoft's Internet business, and Microsoft also has the power to publish its own browser."

Now that the advantage has been completely turned to his side, Eric will naturally not make a pointless retreat, but instead put a finger on it: "There is only one condition to talk about, that is, the pre-installation cost of the Yahoo browser. Bill, The current situation is different, the Internet bubble has broken down, Microsoft does not need to force the distraction of this business, the market share of msn portal is not high, the next will only be more insignificant. Make sure that Microsoft will not be split, it is you The only thing I should do."

Bill Gates flipped through the documents in front of him and looked for a while before he looked up: "There is another one, Microsoft can't sign a five-year contract with Yahoo for up to two years."

Eric bargained for a price: "Three years."

Bill Gates added: "The pre-installation fee for each operating system has increased to $5."

"$5, Bill, do you think it is possible?"

Microsoft's current operating system annual sales is about 50 million, Gates directly increases the price offered by Eric by five times, and Yahoo needs to pay $250 million a year, which is more than Yahoo's current annual marketing budget. high.

Bill Gates's tone was quite persistent, and with obvious grievances, said: "Eric, this is what Microsoft deserves, and gave up the share subscription contract. Microsoft has achieved nothing in the past five years. Yahoo must give Make enough compensation."

Eric did not care about Gates's grievances, and even some ridicule, saying: "Our original cooperation was voluntary, and Microsoft also obtained all patent licenses related to web browsers. And if you just feel that you are losing money, To compensate, then, when Microsoft copied the Macintosh system to develop windos, how much should it compensate Apple now?"

Microsoft was originally only Apple's application software provider. Gates was inspired by Apple's Macintosh system to develop windos, which not only violated the restrictive agreement signed by Microsoft and Apple, but also copied a large number of Macintosh patent interface patents. The patent litigation between the two sides has been entangled for more than a decade. Until Steve Jobs returned to Apple two years ago, it was a settlement.

Speaking of it, without Apple’s initial negligence, there would be no Microsoft.

Similarly, if it wasn’t for Gates’ negligence five years ago, Yahoo’s development in recent years would not be so smooth. Without the original cooperation, Microsoft will definitely become a roadblock for Yahoo's unified Internet technology standards.

However, there are too many if there are too many in this world, but there will only be one result.

Bill Gates has been very jealous of others accusing him of copying the black history of the Macintosh system. When he heard Eric’s words, his face suddenly became ugly: “Eric, I don’t want to hear you nonsense, if you If you want to cooperate, you can only accept my offer."

Eric made a gesture toward the door: "Then you are free."

Bill Gates almost got up and walked away. For a moment, he pointed to the laptop in front of Eric and raised his voice: "If I leave, you can't use this broken video!"

"You are wrong, Bill, I can also give Thomas Jackson a look, maybe he can make a final decision to split Microsoft within a month."

"You won't succeed!"

"Try it."

The scene suddenly fell into a stalemate.

After a full minute, Eric took the initiative to say: "3 dollars, this is the limit I can accept."

Bill Gates blinked, but he didn't make it strong. He said: "I need to discuss it with Paul and Steve."

"No problem," Eric nodded, knowing that this was just a big door. The students were not willing to agree immediately. They didn't say anything more. They raised their hands and pointed to the direction of the Hudson River in the west: "Will you stay to see the fireworks? There really is a boat."

Bill Gates once again squinted at the laptop in front of Eric, snorted, and did not say anything to say that he got up and walked toward the door of Tiantai.

Eric is still sitting there, looking at the coffee on the table in front of him, and suddenly feels that when he meets Gates next time, he can't put anything like food and drink between them.

I gave birth to this idea, so I laughed a little bored.

I went downstairs and changed myself to a pot of hot coffee. I went back to the rooftop and sat down again. The last glimmer of sunset on the horizon gradually dispersed.

It wasn't until the night fell, and I couldn't see anything anymore. Eric just held a cup of coffee and leaned quietly on the back of the chair, looking up at the sky in the west.

At eight o'clock, a bark suddenly appeared in a barge on the Hudson River. Immediately, colorful fireworks exploded in Manhattan, adding a bit of glitz to the colorful city.

Suddenly, the fireworks feast lasted for an hour, attracting a lot of light on both sides of the Hudson River to stop watching, and in the following days caused a heated discussion between the media and the public.

Many people have naturally linked this inexplicable fireworks to the Nasdaq stock market that has just collapsed, and even produced a variety of interesting rumors.

Some people say that this is a hedge fund that used the fireworks to celebrate by short-selling billions of dollars in the Nasdaq stock market that just collapsed.

It is also said that a billionaire has lost all his net worth in the Nasdaq market that just collapsed, so he burned the bloom with the last money on his credit card.

Others say that this is a big company that has been bearish on the prospects of new technology. This fireworks ridicule the collapse of the Nasdaq market.

No matter what the rumors are, they can't resist the fact that the collapse of the Nasdaq market has not stopped signing after the start of the new week, but it has become increasingly fierce.

From July 26th to July 30th, for five consecutive days, the Nasdaq index further deepened, all the way down from 4373 points last week to 3525 points, the overall decline reached 19%, originally supported last week. Some technology stocks have also been difficult to continue, following the overall trend of the market has flowed straight down.

As of the close of July 30, Microsoft's share price fell again to 17.3% in a week, and the market value dropped from $469.9 billion last Friday to $388.6 billion.

However, in the face of another deep drop in stock prices, Microsoft, which has apparently been reliant, is no longer as active as last week. Moreover, after meeting with Eric, Bill Gates did not immediately respond to Eric in the next few days.

Everyone knows that since the collapse has occurred and most of the foam has not been drained, the decline in the Nasdaq index will not stop.

Therefore, Eric is not in a hurry, Microsoft wants to get rid of the trouble in the short term, except for the chips in his hands, there is no way to have a second choice.

Although Yahoo's share price in the second week also fell again by 22.6%, the shares of other Firefly System companies suffered heavy losses, but Eric did not put too much thought on the Nasdaq market.

In the face of the turbulent overall downward trend, Yahoo did not immediately release good news such as financial reports, and now it will only be half the battle. Waiting for most of the bubble to dissipate, and relying on a series of advantages of Yahoo, Eric also has enough confidence to keep the company's market value at around $100 billion.

Beyond Yahoo, Cisco's share price plummeted at all without any control. The industry estimates that Cisco's share price may fall more than 80%. However, the company has formed a very stable revenue and profit model, and the stock price collapsed. It will not cause too fatal effects on it. Moreover, even if the stock price drops 80%, Cisco's market capitalization can also remain above 100 billion US dollars.

After all, every new technology company in the firefly system has a very serious bubble, but in general, it has a very clear development prospect. The capital of the firefly system reserve is enough to support any of these companies to continue to develop. .

In comparison, as the analysis article of Barron's Weekly two weeks ago said, most of the new technology companies in the Nasdaq market will be unsustainable after consuming the funds raised by ipo. A large part will eventually die out.

However, the huge industry supported by hundreds of billions of dollars of speculative capital has had a lot to offer. Waiting for the stock price to fall to the bottom, by then, the firefly system can also merge with the companies it needs at the lowest price to further expand the territory of the firefly system in the new technology field.

Looking at the spectacular scene of the Nasdaq market, Eric’s main energy has turned to Hollywood.

Compared with the new technology companies whose stock prices have fallen sharply compared to Firefly Investment, the industry’s valuation of the Firefly Group has not been lowered due to the explosion of “Witch Blair” from the beginning of the year to the recent “Movies”. The media inside the sneaky clover fund even hinted that the Firefly Group's performance this year will create an unprecedented miracle.

In fact, this is the case. In 1999, only the first two quarters, the firefly group's main business net profit has reached a total of 2.285 billion US dollars.

In the second half of the year, with the continuous income brought by the "Cars", the abc TV station's upcoming reality show "No Idol", Firefly Film '4200' plan accompanied by "gravity" and "Lord of the Rings" Large-scale release, it is foreseeable that the firefly group's profitability in the next two quarters will only be even better.

It is the tens of billions of dollars of cash that the Shamrock Fund has successfully cashed in. The cumulative net profit of the Firefly Group in all aspects in 1999 will reach 40 billion US dollars. If exposed, this will definitely become a miracle of annual profits in the history of American companies.

However, in the past two weeks, Hollywood has attracted Eric’s attention not to the Firefly Group’s business, but to Shrek, which was released on July 16.

Another new work after the "Ice Age", Blue Sky Studio, in the early stage of the small-scale preview, received a lot of praise for the ingenious anti-fairy story setting.

However, the box office in the first week of the film was not satisfactory, only $56.49 million.

In the past few weeks, another film from Columbia Pictures, "The Elf Mouse", which was combined with the animation and animation, failed to perform at the box office. Eric originally thought that "Shrek" could not re-create the box office miracle.

Fortunately, the production cost of "Shrek" is still well controlled by the Blue Sky Studio at 60 million US dollars, only half of the "Cars", which is 50% lower than the $90 million production budget of "The Elf Mouse". %, therefore, Eric is not worried about the profit prospects of Shrek.

Even with the first week of $54.49 million, the film's North American box office broke through 100 million without any suspense. Counting the follow-up overseas box office and surrounding earnings, "Shrek" is destined to generate huge profits. Blue Sky Studios in the first week of the film box office After the release, the plan for brewing the sequel has begun.

However, the development of the matter is beyond everyone's expectations.

The second week of the release, perhaps the further fermentation of word of mouth, "Shrek" at the box office of the next week, there was a box office that made everyone feel surprised, eventually reaching 63.65 million US dollars.

In two weeks, the total box office of Shrek has reached 120 million US dollars, directly allowing the film to recover the production costs.

Moreover, according to this miraculous box office trend of reversing, the final box office of "Shrek" will never stop with less than 200 million US dollars. According to the analysis made by the Fox distribution department, as long as the subsequent box office curve is strong enough, the film will easily break through 250 million US dollars, and may even hit the $300 million box office mark.

A 3D animated film with a production cost of only $60 million has the potential to show up at the box office bomb, which inevitably caused a hot debate in Hollywood.

Moreover, Blue Sky Studio's low-cost control mode for "Ice Age" and "Shrek" has also become the focus of Hollywood research. After all, one of the biggest problems facing animated films is the overly large investment in production.

Throughout the summer, although between the "Cars" and "Shrek", there is also a $90 million "elf mouse brother" box office lost, but the entire Hollywood has once again increased the attention to 3d animated film and Invest.